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Roper, Driskel look ahead to successful season

By Robbie Andreu | Halifax Media Services

Published: Friday, August 22, 2014 at 04:24 PM.

GAINESVILLE — If Florida offensive coordinator Kurt Roper could construct his ideal quarterback, the building blocks would include a strong arm, a sound offensive mind, physical size and athletic ability.

But he would begin his quarterback project with something else, something maybe not quite as obvious to the naked eye.

“People ask me all the time, ‘What’s the most important thing a quarterback can possess?’ “ Roper said Tuesday. “Well, it’s numerous, it’s huge. It’s physical abilities, it’s mental abilities. But the first thing that I want is a guy that is mentally tough, that you can’t shake him.

“It doesn’t matter if the crowd boos him running off the field. It doesn’t matter if you have a four-interception game. It doesn’t matter if you go on social media and everybody tells you, ‘You’re not any good.’ “

Mental toughness. Roper said his current quarterback, Jeff Driskel, has it. And that’s an essential building block.

“I think he is mentally tough. I think he’s got the right look in his eye to go out (and be a player),” Roper said. “Now we’ve got to go out and have success and all those things, but you’re never there. You’ve never arrived.”

Mental toughness is always a work in progress, Roper said. To illustrate his point, he related a story about Peyton Manning, a quarterback he once coached at Tennessee.

GAINESVILLE — If Florida offensive coordinator Kurt Roper could construct his ideal quarterback, the building blocks would include a strong arm, a sound offensive mind, physical size and athletic ability.

But he would begin his quarterback project with something else, something maybe not quite as obvious to the naked eye.

“People ask me all the time, ‘What’s the most important thing a quarterback can possess?’ “ Roper said Tuesday. “Well, it’s numerous, it’s huge. It’s physical abilities, it’s mental abilities. But the first thing that I want is a guy that is mentally tough, that you can’t shake him.

“It doesn’t matter if the crowd boos him running off the field. It doesn’t matter if you have a four-interception game. It doesn’t matter if you go on social media and everybody tells you, ‘You’re not any good.’ “

Mental toughness. Roper said his current quarterback, Jeff Driskel, has it. And that’s an essential building block.

“I think he is mentally tough. I think he’s got the right look in his eye to go out (and be a player),” Roper said. “Now we’ve got to go out and have success and all those things, but you’re never there. You’ve never arrived.”

Mental toughness is always a work in progress, Roper said. To illustrate his point, he related a story about Peyton Manning, a quarterback he once coached at Tennessee.

“That’s a guy who obviously should have a lot of confidence in himself,” Roper said. “He played in the Super Bowl against the New Orleans Saints and everybody remembers it as a one-touchdown game. He’s battling to win the football game and throws that interception to make it a two-touchdown game.

“And he went over there and missed the tackle, so now he’s got to run to the sideline knowing they’re down two touchdowns and it’s probably going to be difficult to come back. He’s got to go into the press room afterwards and look everybody in the eye and answer all those questions that aren’t going to be easy questions. Some of them critical questions.

“And he’s got to walk out of there with no chink in his armor. Here you’re talking about a guy who’s a 10- to 12-year NFL vet playing in his second Super Bowl. It never ends. You’re always battling that and keeping that mindset.”

Driskel has been playing quarterback a short time in comparison to Manning, but the fourth-year junior has already had his mental toughness tested often at Florida.

He had to come off the bench cold early in his true freshman season and play against a great Alabama defense after John Brantley went down with an ankle injury in the first half. Driskel also injured his ankle later in the game.

He survived some tough starts and tough times the rest of his freshman year, then survived a heated quarterback duel to win the starting job over Jacoby Brissett in 2012.

Even when times were good, when Driskel was quarterbacking the Gators through an 11-1 regular season in 2012, he heard criticism for his lack of production in the passing game.

Then, last season, he had a rough game in a loss to Miami, then limped off the field against Tennessee two weeks later with a broken lower leg.

He seems to have come through it all stronger than ever, the clear No. 1 quarterback for the Gators and a guy whose confidence and mental toughness have not been questioned in some time — at least since Roper took over as the new coordinator in January.

“There’s one guy in this world that can take Jeff Driskel’s confidence from him and that’s Jeff Driskel,” Roper said. “It’s not me as a coach. It’s not anybody else. And if he will buy into that and believe that, now you got a mentally tough guy that can go play the game. And I think that’s very important.”

Driskel’s confidence has been questioned in the past, especially when he’s come off a shaky performance like he had in last year’s loss to Miami, where he threw two interceptions and lost a fumble.

If confidence has been a problem for Driskel, Roper hasn’t seen it. Not yet.

“I guess since I’ve been here, he’s a confident guy,” Roper said. “He’s got a great look in his eye. He’s a bright-eyed guy. I don’t think he’s ever lacked confidence. I think where you see the confidence growing is in understanding what we’re doing offensively.

“The more understanding you have, the faster you can make decisions, the faster you can play. You have to be able to play fast and be decisive. I think that’s probably the most important attribute a guy has is being decisive as a quarterback. I think I see his confidence growing in that realm.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever lacked confidence,” Driskel said. “I think that our confidence is higher now than it was before just because we’ve done some things to boost our confidence. We’ve made a lot of big plays against a really good defense.

“When that happens, you start to feel a little bit more excited and a little bit more confident. I think that we have a good thing going on offense and we just have to keep getting better.”

Roper said the focus now is on Driskel’s decision making.

“I think the biggest thing is that it gets into fast decisions,” Roper said. “If we will have a plan, manage our plan and make fast decisions, you’ve got a chance to be a pretty good football team. He’s got a chance to be a pretty good quarterback.

“That’s really where our focus is. I don’t go back and spend a lot of time really watching any film with him from the past at all. It’s moving forward and how do we fix it and being decisive.”

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